


The World Is Blurry, Or maybe It's Just My Eyes

by thegoatz



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Sharing a Bed, daniel gets a nightmare and kane helps him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-12 23:16:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20572544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoatz/pseuds/thegoatz
Summary: "Daniel, I'll be by your side 'till the end of the line."





	The World Is Blurry, Or maybe It's Just My Eyes

His thoughts are as black as the night, deep and twisted; unforgiving, their depth completely unknown, hiding secrets that are better left unsaid.

He hasn't been normal for longer than he wanted to admit; Daniel had been called deranged more often then he would have liked. He hadn't been himself, he hadn't been Daniel. No, now he was just a man who had been consumed by the very things he promised to fight.

There was no hope for him.

He shifts his weight restlessly from foot to foot and flexes his hand, a nervous habit that he picked up from Kane.

The memory of him brings a smile to his face, a soft, gentle, smile that doesn't feel quite right, doesn't feel quite so _Daniel_. He doesn't feel quite right; hasn't for a while.

He feels like a completely different person like he's taken over someone's body. It feels wrong. He still _feels_: he feels pain, joy, anger, but it doesn't feel like it's his like he's looking through a window as someone experiences the feelings that should belong to him.

Sometimes he doesn't want to feel.

Sometimes he doesn't want to do the things that he has to, but he does because he believes them to be what's best.

What's best for business.

A distasteful homage to the very thing that sought out to ruin him all those years ago.

He can hear the crowd.

Yelling so joyously that Daniel allows himself to be devoured by it. His mind wanders back to all those years ago where he was the source of all that delight.

Against his better judgement, he lets the feeling wash over him, he can feel the euphoria settling in, swarming his veins, his lungs, his mind. And almost as soon as it's there, it's gone again, replaced by such a crushing realisation that it feels like his whole world is crumbling down.

He was so caught up in the ecstasy that he forgot it would end.

It suddenly feels like there's water in his ears, and everything's muffled, he can feel his heart in his throat, he can feel the emotion pushing against his chest, forcing all the air of out his lungs. He swallows past the lump in his throat, reminding himself again, and again, that he needs to do this.

He needs to be the bad guy because otherwise, who will?

His eyes feel wet and his heart keeps beating faster and faster and faster. He can't get in enough air to breathe. The echoes of the muffled roars of the crowd gets louder and louder until it's thudding against his skull. Something wet falls from his eye down his cheek, and Daniel wipes it away, looking down at his hand to see what it is.

It's pure black, and glistens and shimmers on his hand. It drips down onto the floor, the sound of it hitting the ground echoing through him, seemingly reverberating through his very soul.

It falls down his cheek again, but it doesn't stop. Daniel tries to wipe it away, but it never slows; like a waterfall cascading endlessly down. His hands are soon completely black, dripping down his fingers, onto the floor in an increasingly steady flow. He stares at his trembling hands trying to figure out what it is.

His heart won't stop racing; the liquid starts filling his lungs, and Daniel feels like he just can't breathe. The room starts to get darker and Daniel feels so scared. He wants to scream out, to beg for help, but no words leave his mouth. It's open in a soundless scream, just trying to draw in as much air as he can. He looks down again at his hands, blackened by the liquid, and stares in horror as they start to crumble away, dissolving into dust, that drifts away.

He feels so helpless.

His head starts to pound, and his tongue tingles. His breathing speeds up although seemingly no air fills his lungs. He looks up, as his body starts to dissipate, and he sees all the people that he's done wrong. They stare at him, watching as he's slowly being consumed, he tries to scream out to them, to beg them to help him, but they only stare on. Kane is directly in front of him, the room darkens still, and Kane stands unmoving, not caring as Daniel breaks down in front of him. Daniel reaches out to him, begging, but Kane never moves.

The room continues to darken and Daniel just gives up, Kane is the last thing that he sees. He closes his eyes, and suddenly he's falling, falling, falling.

He wakes up with a loud gasp, drawing in as much air as he can to his screaming lungs. His eyes are wet, and his head aches. Daniel tries to calm his breathing, taking in a shaky breath, after shaky breath, squeezing his eyes shut when they start to sting.

A stray tear slips out, and he hastily wipes it away, trying not to think about what happened. He places his head in his quivering hands. Minutes tick by before his breathing turns normal. He suddenly tears the bedsheet off of him, trying to cool his burning skin. He glances at the clock, which tells him that it's five am, and decides not to go back to sleep. It's not until several hours later that his hands truly stop shaking.

  
\--

  
Kane notices that something is wrong with Daniel almost immediately upon seeing him. He's too on edge, he's shaken; scared, in a way that Kane has never seen before. It unnerves Kane to no end. He asks him, over and over again, what's wrong, and every time Daniel pretends like it's nothing. Daniel gives him a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes and tells him that everything is fine, that he's okay.

_Bullshit_.

He knows that he shouldn't be so adamant on trying to figure out what is wrong, but Daniel is reassuring him, and when he does that, Kane knows that something is wrong. If everything was okay, Daniel would grow frustrated, he would yell, he would scream, telling Kane to mind his own business, but this... this wasn't _him_. This Daniel has become dauntingly complacent.

This Daniel would let Kane fret over him after matches, checking up on him for any injuries, this Daniel would have a look in his eyes that looked almost haunted, like whenever Daniel looked at Kane, he saw a ghost or something out of a nightmare, and Kane is running out of ideas. He wants to help him, but with every day that passes, Kane feels like Daniel slips away further and further, and soon it's going to get too late for Kane to help him.

He never thought that he would say this but, Kane doesn't want to lose Daniel.

And Kane may be a demon, but that night, where Daniel looked so lost, so haunted, so unlike Daniel, when was alone Kane got down on his knees and prayed. He prayed that Daniel could be okay, he prayed that everything could go back to normal, he prayed that this Daniel, the Daniel that looked, that acted like a shell of the real one, could leave forever and the Daniel that he knew, the Daniel that he _loved_, would come back.

He begged that his prayer wouldn't fall on deaf ears, and for once in his life, it seems that the angels were listening.

  
\--

  
It all started with a mix up of rooms at the hotel that they were staying at. There was only one bed, and Daniel had to begrudgingly accept it when there was no possible other room that they could be moved to, he seemed to be so distraught over having to share a bed with Kane that he actually took it as an insult.

"What's so wrong with sharing a bed with me?" Kane asked, half-jokingly, after they had unpacked all of their stuff.

That was the first time in several hours that Daniel had actually looked him in the eye, and Kane couldn't see the shine that was usually there. The realisation making his stomach drop.

"Oh, n-nothing I just... have a hard time sleeping around other people."

Kane narrowed his eyes. He could see straight through Daniel's lie, but something in Daniel's eyes begged him to let it go, so he did with a shrug of his shoulders. The way that Daniel's shoulders subconsciously dropped, and a smile that wasn't truly genuine, but felt less fake then they had been in a while, was plastered on his face, made something feel warm inside his heart. Kane waited until Daniel turned around to fold up his shirt before letting out a soft smile. He didn't believe Daniel, not one bit, but he didn't look as unnerved as he had been, and Kane considered that a win.

When the time comes for them to eventually sleep, it's semi-awkward, the both of them trying to avoid each other's eyes whilst trying to make it as less uncomfortable as possible, which doesn't work out that well. They both stay on the complete opposite sides of the bed. Daniel thinks to say goodnight, but he decides against it, not wanting to make the situation even more awkward.

It's safe to say that Daniel was full of trepidation when he found out that he had to sleep in the same bed as Kane, he was worried, to say the least. His... nightmares, there's really no other way to say it, have been keeping him awake lately. He looks tired, he knows he does: he can see the way that his eyes look sunken and hollow whenever he looks in the mirror, and no matter how many times he tries to scrub some life into them, they still don't have their usual shine. Daniel just hopes that Kane hadn't noticed them.

He switches off the bedside lamp and lays down, knowing full well that he can't sleep; he doesn't want to sleep, he doesn't want Kane to see him weak, especially when it's taken him so long to earn his respect.

Daniel just turns over on his side and tries to prepare himself for whatever was going to happen, hopefully, if he is lucky, then nothing bad.

_But, when has luck ever been on his side?_

  
\--

  
Kane is facing away from him, as far away from him as possible, and as the seconds turn into minutes, and the minutes turn into hours, Kane still can't sleep. Daniel just won't leave his mind, it gnaws away at the back of his mind, and just after Kane has stared at the grains in the wall for the second consecutive hour, he feels the bed move behind him. The weight shifts closer to him, but Kane doesn't move. It stops and Kane waits, a couple of seconds pass and Kane just thinks that it was Daniel moving in his sleep.

But then something soft touches his back.

He instinctively tenses and it draws away, but Kane forces himself to relax, and the thing tentatively returns. It takes him a second to realise that it's Daniel's hand, his fingers tracing delicate shapes onto his back. The touch is warm, and his fingers feel soft. Kane tries to make out what Daniel is tracing but he gives up after a while. Occasionally, a nail would scrape across his skin, and he would have to fight off the urge to shiver, but the gentleness of his touch makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Sometimes, the tips of his fingers would spread across his back, and Daniel's palm would gently touch his skin.

It was strangely soothing, and Kane doesn't think that he'd ever admit that Daniel's hand slowly tracing patterns across his back helped him fall asleep.

His peaceful sleep didn't last that long. Kane had always been a light sleeper; it didn't take much for him to wake up, so when he feels the bed shifting slightly behind him, Kane can't help but let out a grumble as he slowly wakes.

The bed shifts more vigorously and can hear distressed noises coming from Daniel behind him. Kane quickly checks behind him and sees Daniel looking terrified. At first, Kane thinks Daniel's awake, but he quickly notices the way that his eyes are screwed shut. He looks scared, and for a second Kane doesn't know what to do. Daniel's saying things in his sleep, little whimpers: gasps that sound like begging, and Kane immediately shifts over to him.

He puts a tentative hand on Daniel's shoulder and feels him flinch away as if the very touch was burning him. Daniel still looks as distressed as ever, and Kane puts his hand back on Daniel's shoulders, trying to shake him awake.

Kane calls out his name, telling him to wake up, and eventually, he does with a loud gasp, and Kane grips Daniel's shoulders tightly. Daniel's mouth is wide open; gasping for air that just won't come. He eventually turns his head, his eyes wide and frightened, so bright and blue that maybe, if they weren't in the situation that they were in, Kane might have allowed himself to get lost in them.

But now, Kane is worried. More worried than he ever thought he would admit.

"Daniel, are you okay?" Kane immediately voices, almost smacking himself because, _no he's not okay, he just had a nightmare for fuck's sake_.

One of Daniel's hands comes up to grip Kane's forearm, his lungs still desperately trying to draw in air. His nails dig into Kane's skin, but Kane can't find it in himself to care, because right there, right now, only Daniel is on his mind. Daniel's world is a little blurry, or maybe it was just his eyes, either way, Daniel squeezes his eyes shut, clutching onto Kane as if he was the very thing keeping him alive.

"I- I'm okay," Daniel rasps out after a while, opening his eyes slowly, and Daniel's not surprised when the look on Kane's face is a look of utter disbelief.

"You... just had a nightmare," Kane states out loud, more to himself than Daniel, but Daniel nods anyway, "h- how long have you being having them?"

Daniel shrugs his shoulders, not exactly trusting himself to speak, and Kane doesn't push him. Somehow, without either of them noticing, Kane's hand shifted from its place on Daniel's shoulder, to gently cupping the side of Daniel's face, his thumb running comfortingly over Daniel's cheek. Daniel nuzzles it gently, his eyes staring up at Kane, and he doesn't think that he's ever seen Daniel look so vulnerable. His breathing has slowed down, but his heart still races.

Daniel surges towards him without thinking, wrapping his arms around Kane and burying his face in Kane's chest, and it's only then that Kane realises just how much Daniel is shaking. Kane is quick to comfort him, whispering whatever he thinks would make Daniel calm down.

It's a long while before Daniel calms down, and an even longer while before Daniel pulls away. His hand rests on Kane's chest as he looks into his eyes. Daniel's own are filled with so much gratitude that he looks like he's going to break. One of Kane's hands find themselves tangled in Daniel's hair, the thumb resting on Daniel's cheek, and Kane can't help but smile at him.

"It's been..." Daniel starts, his brow furrowing as he tries to remember, "a couple of months since I started getting them. I- I don't know why though."

Kane just nods his head, understandingly, encouraging Daniel to continue.

"Y- you're in them," Daniel admits, struggling to meet Kane's eye.

"I'm in them?"

Daniel nods his head, forcing himself to look at him straight in his eyes.

"I- I'm dying, I think, in them, and y- you're standing there, just looking. I- I keep trying to call out to you, to get you to help me, but you never do and god, Kane, I get so scared."

Daniel's eyes start to brim with tears, and Kane pulls him in for a hug, wrapping his arms as much as he can around Daniel's smaller frame. Kane buries his face in the crook of Daniel's neck, breathing him in.

He whispers, so softly, "I won't ever leave you, Daniel. Never."

Daniel just tightens his arms around Kane, and for the first time, in what feels like forever, Daniel finally, _finally_, feels safe.

"Daniel, I'll be by your side 'till the end of the line."


End file.
